‘Extinct’ wild cattle to be reintroduced to Scottish Highlands

Up to 15 tauros – a breed of huge wild cattle – are to be reintroduced to Scoltand’s Highlands by 2026. It is hoped they will help restore biodiversity, store carbon and enhance eco-tourism. 

The project, led by Scottish conservation charity Trees for Life, aims to replicate the ecological role of their ancestors, the aurochs, an extinct species that thrived for millenia in Europe. 

“These remarkable wild cattle can be a powerful ally for tackling the nature and climate emergencies,” says Steve Micklewright, chief executive of Trees for Life.

The muscular, long-horned tauros, which will be introduced to a 4,000-hectare plot of land near Loch Ness, have been brought back to life since the early 2000s in the Netherlands. How? By interbreeding cattle breeds that are genetically and physically closest to the aurochs.

Classified as domestic cattle, tauros have no equivalent among other breeds, yet aurochs’ DNA has survived in a number of ancient original cattle breeds.

Uniquely, tauros have thus been ‘back-bred’ to genetically replicate, resemble and behave like the extinct aurochs as closely as possible. Bulls can reach up to 180cm and cows 150cm at the shoulder, similar in size to aurochs. 

Reintroducing tauros to Scotland after 400 years

Aurochs disappeared from Europe around 400 years ago as a result of habitat loss and pressures from hunting. 

They went extinct in Britain around 1300 BC, before disappearing globally three hundred years later, with the last aurochs dying in Poland in 1627. 

Aurochs once counted as one of Europe’s largest land mammals and the heaviest after the wooly mammoth and the wooly rhinoceros. As a keystone species on the continent, they ensured a rich mosaic of habitats including grasslands, forest and wetlands. 

In the portuguese Côa Valley, the animals are depicted in rock carvings dating back 30,000 years. 

Tauros help boost wildlife and store carbon dioxide

The introduction of tauros in the Highlands holds great promise for climate and biodiversity. 

Due to their size and behavior, tauros interact with their environment more than other cattle that are smaller and less active, European studies have found. As large grazers, they contribute to the growth of native plants and create habitats for wildlife. These boost species diversity and soak up carbon dioxide.

They also support healthy soils through their dung and the creation of ‘bullpits’ – bowls in the earth carved out by rutting bulls using their horns and hooves, or through strengthening their neck muscles by bashing their heads against one side of a pit. 

Bullpits form micro-habitats that support invertebrates, in turn eaten by small mammals and birds, and allow pioneer plant species to establish.

Are tauros dangerous?

According to UK newspaper The Guardian, an earlier attempt to breed an aurochs lookalike, Heck cattle, was made by German zoologists Lutz and Heinz Heck in the 1920s. 

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This aggressive breed – once seen as a symbol of Nazi Germany’s ambitions to rule the world – has then been deployed in some rewilding projects. However, the rewilder Derek Gow got rid of his British-based herd because they were too difficult to handle.

While no large animal is entirely risk-free, Trees for Life says that the raised tauros are placid towards people and have been bred from six ancient cattle breeds that are naturally unaggressive.

Tauros will be treated as farm animals but live as wild a life as possible, the charity says, with some safety protocols that will allow people to encounter them in a managed way.